Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed Vladimir Putin’s call for direct peace talks, but said Kyiv will only meet after Moscow agrees with a 30-day unconditional ceasefire starting Monday.
However, the Kremlin insisted that he would not stop the three-year occupation of the Russian President in Ukraine without first holding talks on the “initial reasons” on the conflict.
Competitive proposals show that Ukraine and Russia remain far from how to start a peace process as they fight for the good will of US President Donald Trump.
“We expect Russia to confirm a ceasefire – full, stable and reliable – starting tomorrow, May 12 and Ukraine is ready to meet,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media on Sunday.
He called Putin’s proposal “a positive sign that the Russians have finally begun to consider the end of the war.”
“The whole world has been waiting for this for a very long time. And the first step to ending every war is a ceasefire,” he said.
Earlier on Sunday morning, Putin offered to conduct unconditional negotiations in Istanbul on Thursday, but rejected the proposal of the 30-day Ukraine ceasefire.
Although Russia and Ukraine made it clear that neither party was ready to meet, unless the other agreed to hold talks on their conditions, Trump seemed to welcome the start of a peace process after Putin’s statement.
“A potentially excellent day for Russia and Ukraine!” The US president wrote on social media. “Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this will never end” Bloodbath “hopefully it will end.”
He later posted in the social truth that “Ukraine must agree with this, immediately.”
Putin resumed combat operations in Ukraine shortly after insisting that he would only carry talks on the ceasefire after Russia’s main demands were met to end the war. After he spoke with reporters in the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday, the sirens faded in Ukraine, as Russian drones attacked the targets in several regions.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told the state TV that Moscow wanted to hold talks in Istanbul based on the failed peace process held there in the early months of the war in 2022, as well as the “real situation (…) on the ground”, where Russia holds the upper hand on the battlefield.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Putin that Turkey was ready to expect peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Erdogan’s office said.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Ukraine had “misunderstood” Putin’s statement. “Putin said very clearly: negotiations on the initial reasons (for the war) first, then a conversation about the ceasefire,” she told the new state of TASS.
Russia’s demands include a bar on NATO membership for Ukraine and recognition of Putin’s annexation of the four south-eastern regions, as well as an end to Western military support for Kyiv. A return to Istanbul’s talks will also include Ukraine to commit neutrality, accept hats in her army, and accept Moscow’s demands to protect Russian in the country.
Ukraine has said that these terms will end its existence as a modern state.
Russian counter-conferent is a refusal of the proposal of the 30-day ceasefire made earlier on Saturday after the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom visited KYIV to meet Zelenskyy.
The air defenses marked the early morning silence in Kyiv just hours after the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom left by train from the Ukraine capital.
European partners agreed that if Russia would refuse a total and unconditional 30-day ceasefire, more strict sanctions would be approved against banking and energy sectors, Elysée said late Saturday evening.
French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Sunday that Putin’s response was “a first act, but not enough”, adding that it was a means of “not responding” to the ceasefire proposals.
“We have to keep with the Americans to say that the ceasefire is unconditional and then we can discuss the rest,” he said from a train overnight in Pramyśl, Poland, after we left Kyiv.
“It is unacceptable to Ukrainians because they cannot accept parallel discussions as they continue to be bombed.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also urged Russia to agree with an immediate ceasefire.
In a post on the Social Media Platform X on Sunday he wrote: “In response to our Appeal, the Russians have proposed peace talks starting May 15. The world, however, is waiting for a univocal decision on immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine is ready.
Additional reporting by Raphael Minder and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany
